Bush On Iran And Iraq

After seeing the Left go off on Chris Matthews for basically praising Bush in this regard, I've taken a few minutes out of the recent Bush presser, minutes addressing the issues of Iran and Iraq, see the You Tube below. Understandably, the Right seems to be Bushed, some folks picked up on him using the words kids when speaking of the 9/11 hijackers. Perhaps even more so than Allah, I don't interpret the kids remark to be a dismissing of guilt. I think it mostly a function of age and perspective - twenty-something year-olds are kids to many people. And simply pounding on Bush for what's admittedly often been a weak communications strategy while ignoring instances where he has done very well, doesn't help the larger cause. That's especially true when you hear him speak on Iran and Iraq, as he clearly sees himself and America as being at war with radicalism in the Middle East. And he understands it is ultimately the defining issue of our time. And, lastly, he has no intention of quitting on Iraq.

Comments

[JLawson]

I know it's not PC to admit it - but if we'd had Gore in the White House on 9/11 I think we'd be severely screwed by now. Gore would never have dropped taxes the way Bush did, which means that instead coming out of a mild recession left by Clinton we would have had a pretty serious recession. And since darn near the first thing Democrats do when faced with economic instability is raise taxes, that would have swung the economy further into the red. And the financial hit of 9/11 would likely have shoved the economy into a full-fledged depression.

What would Gore's response have been after 9/11? Go into Afghanistan to take out Al Quaeda, almost certainly. But stay there and try to build up a functioning country? Take down Saddam, and try to end the threat of radical Islam? Would Libya have given up THEIR WMD programs if we hadn't?

It's difficult to say at this point what he would have done. But I don't think he would have waged a long fight in the ME, instead opting for diplomatic business as usual.

I know it's not popular to say so - but for all the rhetoric, I don't see anyone being able to do a better job navigating the maze that's been the '01-'08 Presidential terms. Not that Bush has done a perfect job... but perfect, as they say, is the enemy of 'good enough'. No president's done a perfect job, from Washington onward. 'Good enough' is good enough.

[Phoenix]

Who cares if it's PC to say it. You said it right.

[Bill Adkins]

I'm not even going to watch the Bush video. I'm certain it includes him ratcheting his jaw causing his lips to move and if George W Bush's lips are moving he's lying. He's been nothing but a clusterfuck since day one of his administration, he's screwed up the pursuit of Al Qaeda, he's committed the greatest military/diplomtic Blunder in American History in Invading Iraq, he's destabilized the middle east for generations as if his goal were the same as Al Qaeda's - is George W. Bush on our side or theirs?

[Rich Casebolt]

Bill, at least there is no question of the sides you and your fellow members of the Kumbiyah choir take ... and have taken for decades.

That would be any side that will push America back to the least-common-denominator of global stature.

The MidEast was destabilized for a long time before 21 January 2001 ... and many of your fellow choir members were in positions of power and influence over those preceeding decades, located in positions where they could accurately perceive the problems, perceive how to solve them (as our current President has), and ACT to solve them.

But ... y'all did NOTHING to solve them.

Their sustained INACTION and ineptitude in the face of that instability are orders of magnitude greater than anything this President has done or not done.

In your smug arrogance that you were so "enlightened" as to be "above" the need to take violent action to defend your nation ... y'all fiddled like Nero, while the Saddams and Osama's of this world lit the torches and the tinder.

Bottom line, Bill ... you and your fellow travelers are just mad because someone who does not believe in the idea that government exists to guarantee your "rights" to ...

... get high ...
... get drunk ...
... get laid ...
... get a "free" Band-Aid(TM) ...
... get a check ...
... just get by ...
... by taking the right of many others to get ahead ...
... while never making you feel guilty or responsible for doing so ...

... "stole" your perceived birthright-to-rule as members of the Best and Brightest of Woodstock Nation.

And you don't care how many people end up dying, as you try and get it back by hook and by crook.

[Bill Adkins]

"least-common-denominator of global stature" is what Bush has achieved since 9/11, Rich, all while you have floated serenely down Denial. That you can't see the precipitous drop in our global stature reveals how shallow and simple you are. INEPTITUDE has been the HALLMARK of this administration. And that INEPTITUDE is perfectly illustrated in Bush's Blunder in Iraq, an INEPTITUDE passed to him by his father who definitively screwed the pooch in '91 when he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. See, Rich, if you think I'm pacifist or anti-war you are as confused as the Bush Administration. The rest of your post which seems to be a re-hash of your perceptions of the '60s is simply, well, the only word to describe it is stupid. Too young to be a hippie, too old to be a yuppie, too smart to be a Republican would describe me accurately. AS for that last line, however, aboutcaring "how many people end up dying, as you try and get it back by hook and by crook" -- that's what Bush is doing now with our soldiers in that wasteland called Iraq - the only concern he has about casualties is whether it has a negative political impact for him. He's in the middle of his last Hurrah and his legacy is and will remain a failure unless his flurry of Hail Mary Passes (he calls them 'surges') has an effect. There are military geniuses still - but neither George W. Bush nor you, Rich are among them.

[Rich Casebolt]

>

If "global stature" means being the leader of a pack of weasels who, out of realpolitik or misplaced idealism, refuse to differentiate between death-dealing dictators and rights-respecting democrats in their dealings, that is nothing to be proud of ... let alone actively seek, as you and your ilk have repeatedly done, Bill.

Especially if you care about life and liberty.

>

And yet, you have pushed for the exact same endgame from his son ... withdrawal ... by your support of his critics in Congress and elsewhere.

You are undermining his effort to not repeat that mistake ... and fortunately, you and your ilk have done a piss-poor job of it.

Can you say "cognitive dissonance"?

Again, I ask ... if a few dozen guys with $1M could pull off 911, then why did it make any sense to let Saddam stay in ABSOLUTE control of the resource-rich, relatively-modern nation that is Iraq?

Are you interested only in the symbolism of "getting bin Laden" ... who has seen his command-and-control mechanisms reduced to carrier pigeons and tin cans with string at the hands of this "inept" President, taking a page from the island-hopping playbook of MacArthur as he deals with other signficant threats ... or fighting the whole breadth of MidEastern terrorism and the totalitarian states that empower it?

>

Lie down with hippie dogs, get up with their fleas ... and by the way, that perception IS historical reality.

Apparently, you support their agenda, as I lay it out above ... for you undermine their primary opponent at every opportunity.

>

If GWB was the political animal you say he is, this war would not have happened on his watch.

Instead, he would have capitalized on a win-win situation in the making, by jumping hip-deep into Oil-For-Food ... and possibly score a Nobel Prize in the process for "avoiding" a war ... at least until 20 January 2009.

And the Iraqi people would have continued to starve, while the terrorists continued to flourish, in Iraq.

How ironic is it that you state he does not care about casualties ... while conveniently ignoring the bloodbath that will ensure if we pull out prematurely ... while conveniently ignoring the too-easy approach he took for too long in post-Saddam Iraq ... while conveniently ignoring the thousands upon thousands killed by Saddam and his ilk.

Again, lie down with hippie dogs, get up with their fleas.

If you really seek peace ... protest the terrorists, not the one who is working to defeat them.

[Bill Adkins]

"if a few dozen guys with $1M could pull off 911, then why did it make any sense to let Saddam stay in ABSOLUTE control of the resource-rich, relatively-modern nation that is Iraq"

***Because he wasn't part of or involved in 9/11 and Al Qeda wasn't in Iraq and because Saddam was tightly contained and no threat. Now, if global domination by the US is your goal, well, hell, why didn't you say so? IN any event, Bush is screwing that up, too.

"And yet, you have pushed for the exact same endgame from his son ... withdrawal"

***Because there's a time and a place - '91 was the time, Iraq was the place. In 2003, it wasn't the time and Iraq was hitting them where they weren't.

" Lie down with hippie dogs, get up with their fleas ... and by the way, that perception IS historical reality"

***Your perception of history as applied to the '60s must be what your poorly educated grandfather told you -- how old are you, anyway?

"this "inept" President, taking a page from the island-hopping playbook of MacArthur"

***Oh, that is hilarious -- not only do you fracture history, you mangle it into an unrecognizable mass. This is not your great great grandfather's war and certainly bears no resemblance to World War II.

"If GWB was the political animal you say he is, this war would not have happened on his watch."

*** Because he is that 'political animal' I say he is and because of the political calcualtion he made, Bush did push for this war -- BEFORE 9/11. And it has backfired - and who pays the tab? The dead.

"How ironic is it that you state he does not care about casualties ... while conveniently ignoring the bloodbath that will ensure if we pull out prematurely ... "

*** A bloodbath that would have never occurred but for the original act of Blundering into Iraq. BTW, do you think Al Qaeda would float to the top among all the warring factions in Iraq? I don't. They can fan the flames, but they cannot extinguish them anymore than we have been able to do so.

[Fred Beloit]

Well said, well handled, Rich. Wee Willy winkie is a loon of the very first order. As an example I offer the following from this busy genius: "That you can't see the precipitous drop in our global stature reveals how shallow and simple you are." But in reality, that Willy/winkie is unable to see that our "global stature" (not absolutely sure what this moron means by that) is irrelevant when it comes to defending ourselves shows she is the simple, shallow one.
And anyhow we will never gain "global stature" by running out on the Iraqis. Did we see a gain in global stature by running out on the Vietnamese, many of whom were slaughtered or died at sea trying to escape the vengeance and oppression of the Viet communists? Here is some news for her, global stature is achieved, if it can be said to exist, by nations that keep their word, finish what they start, help other nations unfairly in trouble, and, perhaps most importantly, produce positive results (hard to do in an always troubled world).

[Fred Beloit]

More evidence, as if more were needed. "*** A bloodbath that would have never occurred but for the original act of Blundering into Iraq." (Love those three asterisks.) Guess you are saying, Willy/winkie, the Dems in Congress helped get us into this mess by continually voting to support and continuing to fund this war?. Now you want us to elect one of them as the next President? Which one do you favor?

[Fred Beloit]

Let's see. There is Clinton, the war supporter, Obama who would attack OBL in another sovereign country, Kucinich (no you wouldn't), Dodd whose has never been as interested in the US as he is in Latin America. And a few others with voting records. Oh dear, what to do, what to do? Looking forward to hearing your answer.

[Fred Beloit]

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=0023
7
What is this link, Willy/wink? This link, Willy/wink, is to the Senators who voted for/against the Iraq war on 10/11/02. Some who voted YEA (for the war) are Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Edwards, Kerry, and, last but not least...yes least, is Reid.

[Fred Beloit]

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

[Rich Casebolt]

Unfortunately, Bill your myopia is showing in your regurgitation of hippie talking points and the 20th-century conventional wisdom that dismisses the necessity of preemptive warfare with a jerking knee ...

...measuring threats in conventional force strengths and direct attacks, not in the terms of total capability and demonstrated intent that gives reasonable people the foresight to defend themselves before thousands of them lie dead on American soil.

Saddam was no more "contained" from launching an AQ-style attack against us, than AQ itself ... using terrorist surrogates, not the conventional forces which were the subject of containment ... a containment, BTW, that was not sustainable in perpetuity.

And it DOES NOT MATTER whether or not Saddam was connected to 911, or not.

What matters is the combination of:

> A history of attempted meglomania that motivated many attempts at totalitarian expansion, including the invasion of two neighbors and the UNPROVOKED launching of SCUDs to strike a third.
> A history of seeking and acquiring WMD and/or the means to develop them in the future (he had everything but the stockpiles ... and some of that stuff, had a terrorist surrogate been able to utilize it as a weapon, would have made 911 look like a bad car crash by comparison).
> A history of supporting and sheltering terrorists, including at least one of the 1993 WTC bombers and many of the conflagrationists of Palestine ... and an AQ affiliate called Ansar al-Islam, headed by a now-departed headchopper by the name of Zarqawi.
> A location next to one of the most vulnerable areas of our civilization.
> Having total control of a resource-rich, technically-modern nation ... able to operate under a cloak of national soverignty, but WITHOUT the checks and balances of rights-respecting governance to curb his capricious whim.

You would have us wait, until he proved his intentions by producing a sequel to 911 ... and that is an unacceptable threat to global civilization in this day and age, whether or not AQ is involved.

It simply DOES NOT MAKE SENSE to wait for that kind of "proof", when other proof of the threat is available ... unless you are into the self-flagellation and navel-gazing that the hippies encouraged us to engage in during the last half of the 20th Century.

Also ... read my lips ... THE TERRORISTS -- AQ AND OTHERS -- WERE THERE, BILL.

AND IF IRAQ WASN'T IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO THEM, WHY DID THEY SEND EVEN MORE PEOPLE IN THERE ONCE WE ARRIVED? Conversely, IF IRAQ WAS/IS THAT IMPORTANT TO THEM, WASN'T IT IN OUR INTEREST TO DENY IT TO THEM?

This is not about US global domination.

It is about keeping a few thugs and fanatics from dominating the conduct of our civilization.

It is about keeping people alive, free, and pursuing happiness.

It is about the transformation of MANY nations, not into de facto colonies of the US, but into nations who respect and exercise those UNIVERSAL principles our founders recognized two centuries ago ... principles that immumize nations from totalitarian/terrorist hijacking ... so they can and will peacefully interact with America as respected equals ...

... respected, because they have risen, or are already at, the level we are when it comes to protecting the inalienable rights of both their citizens and ours.

Not just because they bribed or shot their way to President-for-life ... or because their charisma sways their people into surrendering their rights to the charismatic leader.

Only when seen through the prism of hippie conspiracy theories of an invincible and oppressive Corporate America that is capable of said oppression everything without being discovered, can one see what we are doing here as "global domination".

I agree, we should have taken Saddam out in 1991 ... problem is, many of your fellow critics would have trashed that President Bush for such "unilateralism", had he done so.

In other words, people like you facilitated today's mess ... and are still getting in the way of cleaning it up.

Just as you always have, for most of my 48 years of life. You see, the denizens of Woodstock Nation ... many of whom are now in positions of power and influence in our government, academia, and media ... are my immediate predecessors in the Boomer generation.

I am old enough to remember the messes they made -- and were never called to account for -- in the 1970's. I thank God that I was able to stay in school, instead of starting a career, until 1983.

Now, just how was our current President pushing for war ... at least, any more so than his predecessor in the Oval Office, who also described the threat Saddam posed to civilization, but never acted decisively against it ... before 11 Sept 2001? Contingency plans don't count.

You are also correct that this is not WWII ... so why do you insist on the exclusive reliance on metrics of threat assessment from that era?

However, Bush ... like MacArthur ... has isolated PART of the enemy forces arrayed against us ... otherwise bin Laden would definitely have landed more than grainy videotape upon our shores by now.

Or ... are bin Laden and his associates also "inept"?

Finally, let's talk about bloodbaths:

> Before we arrived, Saddam was starving many of his people, when he wasn't shooting them and putting them into mass graves ... unless you were one of the fortunate few he was bribing, or just hadn't gotten around to yet. Not a bloodbath ... but a steady stream, for sure.

> If we prematurely pulled out today, leaving those who have trusted us (and others who would trust us in the near future) in the lurch -- and with the bloody totalitarians that have created the VAST MAJORITY of casualties to date in Iraq arrayed against them ... what do you think would happen? And ... who would ever trust us again to support their efforts to stand against thug regimes? One of the reasons we were not welcomed with "hugs and flowers" was because we betrayed them in 1991 ... in part, because of the response of your fellow anti-war critics.

> If we had not entered Iraq, the steady stream would go on ... as both Saddam and his fellow-travelers in brutality got stronger, kind of like, say, Germany in the 1930's. Keep in mind that, in that relatively-technically-primitive era, it only took them seven years to go from broken-down to blitzkreig ... I would say that today's thugs and fanatics would be able to shorten that "lead time" considerably, if we left them alone ... and put our backs against the wall in a nation-on-nation World War that will create a bloodbath that will make today's Iraq look like a sprinkle.

Want to say it wouldn't happen? Name me one totalitarian (as in, no governmental checks/balances upon their whims -- not merely authoritarian) regime in history who, once they attained the will to expand, stopped doing so and fosook brutality on their own ... in the absence of a CREDIBLE threat against them?

> OTOH, we have the facts on the ground today:

No more mass graves/midnight visits by the authorities/rape rooms/child prisons.

No mass exodus of refugees.

Societal and economic infrastructure being rebuilt (albeit slowly).

Former adversaries, that do not share the evil of the thugs and fanatics, now cooperating with our forces to defeat the thugs and fanatics, becoming
"freedom fighters" in the true sense of the word.

Iran exposed as fomenting unrest, for the world to see.

Syria exposed as facilitating unrest, for the world to see.

Saddam & Sons -- dead.

No doubt in anyone's mind that Iraq is no longer seeking/acquiring WMD for use against our civilization.

So, Bill ... unless you can make a better and more detailed case for your position, why don't you put a stop to flinging the gnat-strainings, and come out of the monkey house?

[Rich Casebolt]

Let me make my last analysis clear, Bill.

Facts on the ground: while there is sectarian violence, it is far from meeting the criteria to be called a "civil war".

And we, and the Iraqi people, are winning out over those who would WANT to create that civil war.

You want to leave now?

[Rich Casebolt]

One last thing, Bill ... I can see where your myopia comes from.

You are so focused on trashing one man, that you fail to see everything else.

Just like your hippie fellow-travelers, who believe the war they are fighting started in November 2000.